3 ms·
We're still struggling to accurately simulate a C. elegans. We're a little way off simulating 50+ kg of conscious organism. Not to mention the ethical implicat
by taneq 6y ago
We're still struggling to accurately simulate a C. elegans. We're a little way off simulating 50+ kg of conscious organism.
Not to mention the ethical implications. If we're happy to run "cradle to the grave" tests on a human simulated to that level of accuracy, why not just run them on actual humans bred for research? We can do that right now, far cheaper.
...of course, maybe that just means that we're the disease model...
- LightMachine 6y agoEthics aside, if we could simulate a whole brain, then we could simulate billions of brains and try all sorts of things, something we wouldn't be able to do with physical humans. At least not without being labelled as mass murderers and turning into a bird.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y agoThis made me laugh. If you put ethics aside, couldn't you just do all those things on physical humans? I have a hard time believing we'd find it ethical (at least in the long term) to experiment on a simulated brain. If it were accurate enough, might it be considered a person?
- StavrosK 6y agoWhy wouldn't an accurately simulated brain be considered a person?
- notdonspaulding 6y ago> Why wouldn't an accurately simulated brain be considered a person? Ah, and here we come to the crux of the matter! What makes a person a person? Is it merely electrochemical activity in a certain type of tissue? It's important to recognize that this question comes to the border that marks the end of the territory of biology and the beginning of the territory of philosophy. It's possible to charge right through this border (as Stephen Hawking did in his book The Grand Design) but there is a peril in doing so. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/27/physics-philosophy-quantum-relativity-einstein https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/27/physic... > The attempt to fit consciousness into the material world, > usually by identifying it with activity in the brain, has failed dismally, > if only because there is no way of accounting for the fact that certain nerve impulses > are supposed to be conscious (of themselves or of the world) > while the overwhelming majority (physically essentially the same) are not.
- taneq 6y agoIs he charging through the border, or gently rebuking the concept of a border?
- taneq 6y agoOK this is still bugging me a day later... I'm missing the reference with the bird bit. What's that from?